Category: Lists

Lists of items on different topics chosen by our librarians – if you’re after just the new material, visit our Recent Picks. The lists on this page may feature older items that we love or that fit a topic…

February’s New Music for Te Awe Part 3

MarkLeave a comment

You can check out our first round up of new music for February here and part 2 here.

Albion / Harp (Musical group)
Neil Says: Albion is well named, as former Midlake frontman Tim Smith and his new musical partner Kathi Zung (who is also a puppet maker who has worked with the likes of Guillermo del Toro) have created a work immersed in lonely, windswept, bittersweet English landscapes where the misty moors are shrouded in perpetual twilight. They sought lyrical inspiration from the poetry of William Blake and musically inspiration from the likes of dream pop pioneers The Cocteau Twins and Fleetwood Mac. There are also, unsurprisingly, a few moments that suggest Tim’s previous band Midlake. A dreamy 80’s dream-pop inspired creation that also encompasses English pastoral music, and has a loneliness and eerie sadness running through it.

Gold / Sol, Cleo
Mark Says: Having released Heaven in September last (which made the Best of 2023 list of one of our colleagues), she followed it up with the surprise release of another album ‘Gold’ later that month. As always her music combines the best elements of neo-soul, classic 70’s soul, Jazz & spiritual touches. There’s just something about her music that makes her stand out from the other (too numerous to list) female artists currently mining the same retro sound. Perhaps it’s the organic minimalism of the music that leaves plenty of space for her brand of hopeful personal lyrics, the lack of processing around her vocals, or the way the albums function as a whole to create a sense of soothing calm and quiet strength. Another winner.
Neil Says: Wow, what an album. Intense, intimate, soulful, euphoric, languid and chilled; but it doesn’t achieve this at the expense of ignoring the darker aspects of life. The lyrics are as strong as the music and vocal delivery; everything about it fits and works perfectly. What makes it even more remarkable, is that it just a part of a creative explosion Cleo Sol is undergoing at the moment. She released another album barely a month before this, and is a core part of the phenomenal Sault outfit. It’s neo-soul with strong gospel influences, with a 70’s feel to the musical arrangements that, in places, reminded me of the mercurial Aretha Franklin. As I said at the start: Wow.

Continue reading “February’s New Music for Te Awe Part 3” →

Sports Stories: Books from Te Pataka

XinxinLeave a comment

This blog collects stories and writings of New Zealand sports people, from sportsmen on the field to TVNZ’s sports journalists, from dark horses to well-known champions. This blog also provides unique perspective to some significant sports people and events in New Zealand. Whether you are interested in rugby, cricket, rowing, soccer or Olympics, you will find something interesting to read.

A tingling catch : a century of New Zealand cricket poems, 1864-2009
“Edited by cricket follower Mark Pirie and foreword (and a poem) by well-known cricket historian, former national selector and former president of NZ Cricket, Don Neely. From Samuel Butler’s classic description of the visiting All-England XI in 1864 to Arnold Wall’s widely known First World War piece, ‘A Time Will Come’, to the ‘underarm incident’ of 1981 and more recent cricket poems. This book is sure to appeal to cricket lovers and poetry readers.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)

The Awa book of New Zealand sports writing
“Triumphs, disasters, magic moments, and controversies abound in this collection of writing by top New Zealand sportswriters, including Edmund Hillary’s conquest of Everest, Jack Lovelock’s famous 1,500-meter victory in the shadow of Hitler at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and Jean Batten’s daring, first solo flight from England to New Zealand. Politics and sports come together in a gripping account of the protests, arrests, and controversy surrounding the South African rugby team’s 1981 tour of New Zealand.” (Adapted from Amazon.com)

A life in sport / Telfer, Brendan
” New Zealand’s best known sports broadcaster Brendan Telfer looks back on his career and deals with the Olympic Games, test rugby, international athletics, apartheid in sport, and radio and television broadcasting since 1974. In this book he covers many controversial topics and provides a personal account of working in the field. Stories include the Goodwill Games, TVNZ insider’s view, and comments about Peter Snell, Murry Halberg, Ted Turner, Jane Fonda, Carl Lewis, Bob Charles, Alan Jones and more.” (Adapted from the Catalogue) Continue reading “Sports Stories: Books from Te Pataka” →

Adventurous Huts of NZ: books from Te Pataka

XinxinLeave a comment

This blog explores huts in the high mountains, dramatic Fiordland or icy Antarctica. Some huts are located on this country’s beautiful landscape and make an internationally distinctive statement and icon, some are functional for local farming and mining, while others mark scientific importance across the ages.

A tramper’s journey : stories from the back country of New Zealand / Pickering, Mark
“A celebration of the culture and spirit of tramping in New Zealand. Mark Pickering takes both a serious and humorous look at tramping from a personal perspective. This is one of the few books on tramping which attempts to explain the appeal of an activity which can be strenuous, uncomfortable and often dangerous, but brings its own unique rewards as a result of the effort.” (Catalogue)

Huts : untold stories from back-country New Zealand / Pickering, Mark
“If huts could talk they could tell the whole history of the back country. Of Scottish shepherds who arrived in the high country with the fresh, vivid memories of the Highland Clearances. Of the flush and fury of goldminers and water-racemen in Central Otago. Of the patient and poorly paid jobs of boundary keepers, musterers and roadmen, who lived in tiny huts in the shadow of huge landscapes. Some of the 1500 huts in New Zealand tells the social and mountain history.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)

The daily journal of an Antarctic explorer, 1956-1958 / Warren, Guyon
“Guyon Warren was one of a small group of men who spent 15 consecutive months in the Antarctic in the late 1950s. Warren was a member and geologist of Sir Edmund Hillary’s team travelling from South Pole to the Ross Sea. With his exploration on the ice he helped established Scott Base, right from the construction of the first hut. In this book he rewards you with insights into the day-to-day conditions experienced by himself and his colleagues in the Antarctic.” (Adapted from the Catalogue)

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February’s New Music for Te Awe Part 2

MarkLeave a comment

You can check out our first round up of new music for February here.

Silver / Say She She
Mark Says: This sophomore album from New York trio Say She She ended up on some of the Best of 2023 roundups. Three classically trained vocalists create dreamy disco-soul, channelling early 80s NY, with a core band behind them providing an ever grooving funky backbeat. Smooth silky vocals float in and out of the fun, frothy beats, each track taking it’s time to peak, and revel in all the elements at play. At 16 tracks (all close to the 4 minute mark) it’s perhaps overlong, but still takes you on a relaxing journey.
Neil Says: The sophomore album from Say She She is a soulful, disco focused outing that has echoes of the disco gods Chic. However, this album is much more than a homage, it pushes the boundaries of both these popular forms, without losing sight of what makes the genres so successful in the first place. There are even a few moments of very dreamy lite-psychedelia thrown into the mix. The feather smooth tight interlocking vocals are fantastic, and this modern twist on the soulful funky disco vibe is sure to win lots of fans.

Rainbow revisited / Ntuli, Thandi
Mark Says: A collaborative studio album by South African pianist-singer Thandi Ntuli and American ‘Ambient Jazz’ composer/producer Carlos Niño (producer of André 3000’s debut solo album New Blue Sun) deconstructs more Jazz orthadoxy via the inherent improvisation a the heart of African music. Essentially a solo piano-and-voice session, recorded in 2019 in one Venice Beach afternoon at the studio of LA multi-instrumentalist Niño. A minimalist affair, with some minor overdubbing & post-production, it’s fluid delicate runs explore the nature of freedom and the beauty of the natural world with feelings of hope, loss and serenity. A very intimate, vibey type album; you have to be in the right mood and place for. Made the Guardian’s Top 10 Global Albums of The Year, and ended up on Mojo’s top 10 Jazz albums of 2023.

Continue reading “February’s New Music for Te Awe Part 2” →

Library of Dune

VaughanLeave a comment

This week sees the release of the much-anticipated Dune: Part Two. Directed by Denis Villeneuve, the film will complete his adaption of Frank Herbert’s classic sci-fi novel. Like the first part, this is a movie that will definitely be best experienced on the big screen!

To mark the occasion, I took a look at what we have in the way of adaptions of Dune and other related media.

 Dune
After a lengthy development that initially began in 2008, Denis Villeneuve’s take on Dune arrived on screens in 2021, having been delayed by the COVID pandemic. Starring Timothee Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Issac, Stellan Skarsgard and Dave Bautista, it was greeted with critical acclaim and commercial success.

 

 

 

  Frank Herbert’s Dune
A four-and-a-half-hour miniseries produced by the Sci-Fi Channel and broadcast in 2000. This version was directed by John Harrison and starred Alex Newman, William Hurt and Saskia Reeves. This link refers to the DVD , but both this title and its follow-up Children of Dune can also be viewed using Kanopy.

 

 

 

Dune : a place beyond your dreams : a movie beyond your imagination
The first version to make it to screens was released in 1984. It was directed by David Lynch and starred Kyle McLachlan, Max von Sydow, Patrick Stewart and Sting. Although not a success at the time it has nevertheless endured as a cult favourite.

 

 

 

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Illustrated Lives: Biographies and Memoirs in Graphic Novel Form

KathLeave a comment

If you have never read a graphic novel – maybe because you find yourself reluctant to pick one up or assume that they’re all superhero stories or just for kids – perhaps an illustrated biography or memoir might tempt you to give them a try. Illustrated biographies are a very popular genre and there are plenty of them to get into. Perhaps you could give one or two of these suggestions a go?

Johnny Cash : I see a darkness : a graphic novel / Kleist, Reinhard
“Cash was a 17-time Grammy winner who sold more than 90 million albums in his lifetime and became an icon of American music in the 20th century. Graphic novelist Reinhard Kleist depicts Johnny Cash’s eventful life from his early sessions with Elvis Presley (1956), through the concert in Folsom Prison (1968), his spectacular comeback in the 1990s, and the final years before his death on September 12, 2003.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

It’s lonely at the centre of the Earth : an auto-bio-graphic-novel / Thorogood, Zoe
“The 2023 Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award winning cartoonist, Zoe Thorogood, records six months of her own life as it falls apart in a desperate attempt to put it back together again in the only way she knows how. It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth is an intimate and meta-narrative look into the life of a selfish artist who must create for her own survival. A poignant and original depiction of a young woman’s struggle with mental health–through the ups and downs of anxiety, depression, and imposter syndrome–as she forges a promising career in sequential art and finds herself along the way.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Andre the Giant : closer to heaven / Easton, Brandon M.
“He was called the “Eighth Wonder of the World” and became an inspiration for millions of wrestling fans all over the globe. While his in-ring exploits were full of flash and spectacle, the personal life of Andre “The Giant” Roussimoff was complicated by an excess of partying and the devastating physical toll of his deteriorating health. This graphic novel biography explores the bookmarks of Andre’s story.” (Catalogue)

Continue reading “Illustrated Lives: Biographies and Memoirs in Graphic Novel Form” →